# The Forgotten US Territory Where Chinese Birth Tourism Thrives | Cleo Paskal Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/american-thought-leaders-1056274/the-forgotten-us-territory-where-chinese-birth-tourism-thrives-cleo-paskal Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/american-thought-leaders-1056274/the-forgotten-us-territory-where-chinese-birth-tourism-thrives-cleo-paskal.md Podcast: [American Thought Leaders](https://stenobird.com/podcast/american-thought-leaders-1056274) Published: 2026-07-18T21:00:00+00:00 Episode link: https://www.theepochtimes.com/podcasts Audio file: https://episodes.captivate.fm/episode/01a0c589-fd9c-4319-be16-3c1c12ef7452.mp3 Processing state: not_requested JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/american-thought-leaders-1056274/episodes/the-forgotten-us-territory-where-chinese-birth-tourism-thrives-cleo-paskal Duration seconds: 3361 ## Resource 💰Protect your wealth with precious metals! Call American Hartford Gold today & get up to $20,000 in free silver on your 1st order! Call 855-862-3377 or text AMERICAN to 65532 or click here: https://ept.ms/ATL-AHG There’s one place in America where Chinese nationals can enter without a visa. It’s called the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), a U.S. territory in the Pacific, right by Guam. And it has become a major security loophole for Chinese Communist Party (CCP) influence operations as well as Chinese organized crime and birth tourism ventures, said Cleo Paskal, a senior fellow at the Compass Institute. Yet there has been little political will in Washington to close this loophole, Paskal argues. In this episode, Paskal breaks down the CCP’s aggressive influence and gray-zone warfare operations in this region—areas critical to U.S. defense in any Taiwan conflict—and why this matters for U.S. security. Every U.S. president who served in the Pacific theater in World War II understood that the security of the American mainland depends on a secure Pacific perimeter, Paskal said. As such, in addition to two U.S. territories in the region, the United States has maintained Compacts of Free Association with Palau, the Federated States of Micronesia, and the Marshall Islands since the end of World War II. These treaties give the U.S. military exclusive defense and strategic access to these countries in exchange for U.S. security guarantees and economic support. But the Chinese Communist Party has sought to aggressively expand its influence in these islands through pressure, gray zone warfare, and disinformation campaigns. Amid all this, U.S. funding for these compacts nearly lapsed in recent years, because many in Washington apparently have forgotten thei… ## Actions - request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/american-thought-leaders-1056274/episodes/the-forgotten-us-territory-where-chinese-birth-tourism-thrives-cleo-paskal/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode. - read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/american-thought-leaders-1056274/the-forgotten-us-territory-where-chinese-birth-tourism-thrives-cleo-paskal.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource. A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed. ## Transcript Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.